WASHINGTON: The new acting director of the US Secret Service said on Tuesday he was “embarrassed” by a security lapse that led to the attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 13, but blamed the shortcoming on local law enforcement.
In testimony before two Senate committees, acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said he visited the site of the outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and climbed to the roof of a nearby building from which 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired shots that injured Trump’s right ear, killed one rally-goer and wounded two others with an AR-15-style rifle.
“What I saw embarrassed me,” Rowe said at a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees. “As a career law enforcement officer and a 25-year Secret Service veteran, I cannot justify why that roof was not better secured.”
The first shooting of a U.S. president or major party candidate in more than four decades was a glaring security failure that led to the resignation of former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle last week under bipartisan pressure from Congress.
But Rowe went on to tell lawmakers that the Secret Service was wrong to assume local officials would cover the building and its roof, not the Secret Service.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn rejected the idea that responsibility should have been left to others.
“Isn't that something that should have been covered by the Secret Service, rather than delegated to local law enforcement?” Cornyn asked.
“We assumed that the state and local governments had the solution,” Rowe said. “I can assure you that we will not make that mistake again.”
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked Rowe: “Ultimately, doesn't the responsibility lie with the Secret Service?”
“It's up to us to decide,” Rowe said, but added: “If only they had stayed where they were and looked to the left.”
Rowe's comments came days after a local Swat team assigned to help protect Trump told ABC News that he had no contact with Secret Service agents in charge of security at the rally prior to the shooting and that a planned face-to-face briefing with Secret Service officials never occurred.
Rowe said he has already taken steps to prevent similar mistakes from happening amid concerns among Democrats and Republicans about increased political violence as campaigning intensifies ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. election.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, who also testified before the panels, said Crooks appears to have posted violent anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant content online as a teenager.
It is one of the first pieces of evidence of Crooks's possible inclination toward extremism and political violence found by investigators, who have yet to identify a motive.
Abbate said investigators found a social media account dating back to 2019-2020, when Crooks would have been 15 or 16 years old, adding that the account had posted more than 700 comments.
“Some of these comments, while ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant themes, advocate political violence, and are described as extreme in nature,” Abbate told lawmakers.
The attackers flew a drone near the rally site before the shooting, a flight that Secret Service officials did not notice because a system to detect drones was not working properly due to problems with the local cellular network, Rowe said.
Lawmakers sought to understand why the Secret Service did not delay the rally or prevent Trump from taking the stage, noting that local police saw Crooks using a rangefinder about an hour before the shooting.
Rowe said Crooks was just one of several individuals who came to the attention of local police, adding that the Secret Service was not informed when local police saw Crooks on the roof with the rifle, just before he opened fire.
“They were in the middle of a very critical situation and they said so on the radio, as far as I understand. However, they never communicated that to us,” Rowe said.
The proceedings escalated when Republican Sen. Josh Hawley pressured Rowe to begin expelling agency employees immediately.
“I will tell you, Senator, that people will be held accountable and I will do so with integrity and I will not rush to judgment or allow people to be unfairly persecuted,” Rowe told Hawley loudly.
